It gave me the opportunity to revisit those episodes and gain a fuller understanding ─ my younger brother Mark can't control the drivel that spills from his mouth when he's drunk, and he did much to pull me from the involvement I would have given that final episode had he not been present to ruin it for me.

So after watching all three of those, I still had other shows to catch up on that had been televised over the week, but which I had missed.

And that meant three more shows ─ a long evening of T.V. viewing. It was nearing 1:00 a.m. by the time I joined Jack in bed.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that I may have had something of an erotic dream overnight. Unfortunately, I recall nothing of any such dream; and there was no physical evidence (due to a dysfunction that has developed in recent years).

I only remember waking and having the sense that not too very much earlier, such a dream may have visited me.

But maybe it did not. After all, I was not feeling particularly well, having trouble sleeping in the later stage of my night.

Perhaps at or just after 8:15 a.m., Jack's phone made some sort of pinging noise three times before she responded to it. And then I heard her say a few words.

Then she got up, dressed, and left the bedroom. I checked the time and saw that it was 8:18 a.m., so I rose, too ─ despite feeling very inadequately-slept.

I saw her curled up on the living room chesterfield ─ she was clearly very tired. She was awaiting her youngest son Pote to ready himself, for Jack was going to be driving him to work.

What I do not understand is if she had set her phone to sound those pings at 8:15 a.m., and then used the phone to phone Pote downstairs to be certain that he was up; or if the pings identify a special ring peculiar to his calls, and he had awakened her for that ride to work?

Whatever the case, it's at least five miles from where we live here in the Whalley area over to where he works in a sports shop in Guildford.

When Jack got back home, she just went straight up to our bedroom and returned to bed.

An hour later, her eldest son Tho was knocking on the door and waking her up for some selfish purpose. Jack was so tired that her raised voice in responding to him sounded just as I would imagine that it would if she had suffered a debilitating stroke.

These two young men know that their mother is a troubled sleeper, and that her face constantly reflects this fact. Thus, it is most irksome to me that they persist in disrupting her sleep for their own selfish ends.

Whatever it was that Tho disturbed her for, she was thereafter left alone.

Late in the morning I went outside to sit in a chair in the backyard so that I could face into the Sun for some colouring-maintenance. The session commenced at 11:49 a.m., and I spent just over 40 minutes out there.

I heard Jack in the kitchen just prior to the completion of those 40 minutes; otherwise, I might have remained out there awhile longer.

I was barefooted, but in jeans and a sleeveless tee-shirt. And though it was mostly sunny, there was a constant chilly breeze that was nearly tipping the comfort scale towards the unpleasant.

It is unfortunate that I had not thought ahead last evening and taken a belt out of the bedroom for my jeans. Had I a belt this morning, I might have gone out and done some shopping.

I did not wish to disturb Jack by entering the bedroom to get such an accoutrement. I deem a belt a necessary trapping of dress, for I prefer my pants to be snug about my waist, and not sagging loosely.

I also have my younger brother Mark's cheque for his share of the annual property taxes ─ the payment is due tomorrow. I need to get that cheque of his deposited, for my chequing balance cannot quite cover the cheque I submitted for the property taxes if it should happen to get negotiated tomorrow by the City of Surrey.

She questioned me as to when the Pattullo Bridge would next be facing a full closure for maintenance ─ she had thought that it might be closed as soon as Monday night, but I countered that it ought not be be shutting down until next Friday night (as of 8:00 p.m., actually).

However, that really has no bearing on whether she will be coming home again tonight to extend her streak of consecutive nights that she has spent here.

And having made that observation, I had better snatch my belt from the bedroom while I have it in mind. I need to be free to head out tomorrow morning to shop if Jack sleeps over again.

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I have some photos I now want to post ─ I will lead off with two that I have filed in a Google album with the same description. I include the description just beneath the second image:

Tukta ─ one of the Thai ladies who took such good care of me when I first went to Thailand in January 2003 and ended up in Udon Thani (city).

She owned a car, so she was very instrumental in getting me out into the countryside for some sightseeing.

She E-mailed me this and three other images on July 1, 2016 ─ apparently the 'selfie' was taken on June 30 (2016).

I have not seen Tukta since that first trip of mine to her country, even though I went back to Udon Thani in 2004 and 2005.

She doesn't live in Udon Thani, but rather nearer to Pattaya, I believe. Thus, our paths never crossed.

I would love to see my dear friend again one day!

The other two photos that she E-mailed me are not dated, so I do not know just when she took them. One is of a young boy whom Tukta is raising as her own ─ the mother just left him with Tukta a few years ago.

Will the mother ever show up and demand the youngster back?

The other photo is obviously of Tukta, but she looks so darned tired in it.

When I first met Tukta in January 2003, she had recently gotten married to a Dutchman and was awaiting a visa in order to go and join him in the Netherlands.

Well, that was never to happen ─ the Netherlands deemed her husband unable to support an immigrant wife, and denied the visa application.

Apparently nothing has ever changed.

Obviously I do not know the full details. Perhaps he is not yet of an age whereby he can retire with any kind of pension that would allow him to come to Thailand and primarily stay with her.

Or maybe the two of them have drifted apart over the ensuing years ─ I certainly cannot say.

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I certainly do prize my fish oil ─ I take a swig of cod liver oil with my breakfast/lunch meal (as a rule), and then a capsule of 'wild Alaskan salmon oil' with my supper.

I hope I never have any cardiac issues ─ that's a state of decline I never want to experience.

The moment you wake up in a hospital, there's really just one thing on your mind: getting the heck OUT of there!

There are PRISONS that are more comfortable than some of those joints. Hospitals can be so bad that I once knew a guy who tried to bribe his doc into signing his discharge papers a couple days early.

It didn't work.

So today, I'm going to share with you a secret my buddy didn't try -- a little trick that'll get you on your feet and out the door faster if you're laid up after heart surgery.

We're not talking a difference of hours... but DAYS sooner.

And if you've been following my advice, this simple secret is something you're already doing.

Take some fish oil!

New research finds that seniors who take fish oil supplements BEFORE their heart surgery get home an average of 2.4 days sooner than seniors who take a placebo supplement.

The study doesn't show why, but c'mon. Is this really worthy of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries?

The omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil are absolutely critical to heart function, and help make sure your ticker beats steady as the drummer in a marching band.

That beat-keeping benefit is the key reason for the early dismissals, too, as the study also finds fish oil cuts the risk of one of the most serious complications of heart surgery.

That's when your marching band beat goes haywire, giving you a wild new rhythm -- an irregular heartbeat condition called atrial fibrillation. But the study in the journal Clinical Nutrition finds it's a risk you won't have to worry much about if you take fish oil.

For the record, even if you're not going in for heart surgery, omega-3 fatty acid supplements will slash your a-fib risk or help keep the condition under control if you already have it.

It's not just fish oil... and it's not just heart patients. Good nutrition including multivitamins and omega-3 fatty acids will help keep you upright no matter what risks you face.

And if you're going into the hospital -- or are already in one -- common-sense good nutrition will help spring you free ASAP.

A 2013 study found hospitalized seniors given nutritional shakes loaded with vitamins shave nearly two days off their hospital stays AND have a lower risk of going right back into the hospital days or weeks later (in other words, every senior's nightmare).

If you want to do even better, don't wait until you're laid up to see the light.

Start boosting your nutrients today. Take some fish oil and a quality multi daily so your body is armed and ready for war -- because you never know when you'll be in a battle for your life.

GABA sounds like baby talk, and in a way it is: Take this stuff in the evening, and you could sleep like a baby at night!

You know what a big deal that is.

Seems like the older you get, the tougher it is to get a full eight hours... making you groggy in the morning and cranky in the afternoon.

In fact, roughly half of all seniors have some kind of sleep disorder -- but if you're one of them, this weird baby-talk trick is here to help.

GABA is short for "gamma-aminobutyric acid," and while it might sound silly when you have to ask for it out loud at the vitamin shop, how it works is downright serious.

GABA is a neurotransmitter found in the brain that tells your nerves it's time to settle down, relax, and even turn off for a little while.

This isn't "alternative" medicine; this is biology. But most mainstream docs will tell you there's no way the GABA in a supplement will ever actually get inside your brain.

They're wrong!

The new study finds that this stuff gets sucked up by your body and goes to work within 30 minutes -- helping you get the rest you need, when you need it. Folks who took the stuff fell asleep faster and spent more time in the all-important "deep" sleep.

That's the part of the night your body uses to make repairs and sweep out nasty toxins, including the junk that gums up your brain -- and when you fall short in this phase of sleep, you face a higher risk of chronic disease, including dementia.

As a result of all that, it's no surprise that the study finds folks who take GABA wake up feeling more refreshed and alert.

While all that sounds pretty darned good, GABA alone may not do the trick for every senior.

Heck you may not even need it at all.

Before you try anything else, give the old standard a shot: a little brandy in warm milk can help knock you for the night. (Just don't get sloshed, because even if that puts you to sleep at first, it'll lead to some serious tossing and turning later on).

The "sleep hormone," melatonin, also can help you get the sleep you need.

Whatever you do, don't turn to sleep drugs. Those common meds will only add a few measly minutes to your nighttime rest... they come with terrible side effects... and they can even increase your risk of death by more than 500 percent.

Learn more about those risks -- and some better options -- right here.

My wife Jack gave me a call as I worked upon this post. She wanted to let me know about a container of noodles in the fridge that she had forgotten to tell me about ─ she gave instructions on how to heat them up and incorporate them into supper later this evening.

She also said that she had seen an alert at the Pattullo Bridge indicating that it WILL be closed both Monday and Tuesday nights. So I checked on-line and lo! Those details are now there (they had not been the previous time I checked).

I still don't know if she will be home tonight.

Here to close out today's post is an entry from my journal of 41 years ago when I was 25 years old, and living in a basement housekeeping unit in New Westminster.

At least a couple of times a week, I would hike out to my mother Irene Dorosh's home in the Kennedy Heights of Surrey. Her home was my main mailing address.

The house is now gone, but its address was 12106 - 90th Avenue.

That hike at a good pace would take about 1½ hours from where I lived on Ninth Street at Third Avenue in New Westminster.

Note that I often wrote into my journal over the course of a day, so there was often a sharp break in coherence. But the journal was not intended as a narrative ─ just a record of snippets from my day.

THURSDAY, July 3, 1975

I slept badly toward morning, arising by 6:30 a.m.

I dreamed of being at a dance with Norman; it must have been a S.A.N.E. affair. Melodie, according to Esther, had it on for me, so we got heavily into kissing.

I guess it is to be sunny again.

On my way to mom's, I'll mail a $5 tithe; after I leave her place, I'll be mailing for an Olympic and Western ticket.

I stopped at Econo-mart and bought two boiling chickens (I left 1 with mom) and a 3 pt. carton of little red caboose (red currant: $1.16) ice-cream.

I weighed myself (about 188 lbs) and was eating some when Cathy & kids arrived.

Lunch, of which I overate, was a chicken stew mom made for me yesterday; Cathy left when a Ron came. I watched TV; he soon left with 3 companions.

I had a quantity of cherries.

I left finally, bringing home a new pair of runners I've had for a year or two.

Mail was a tithe receipt, an ad for a book on "Biological Medicine," and an acknowledgment of my order for Swords of Shahrazar from FAX to be published late 1975.

I am determined to rid of this damn thick waist of mine; there are so many luscious lasses about.

Cathy said Bill called on me again last evening.

Mom leaves Saturday for Reno.

At 7:54 p.m. May's Ava Gallay drew my rapt lascivious attentions.

Bed at 8:00 p.m.

My dream seemed to involve my old friend Norman Richard Dearing at some dance apparently sponsored by S.A.N.E. (Self Aid Never Ends), the New Westminster charitable organization for which I worked one day a week ─ usually Friday.

I was a swamper on S.A.N.E.'s blue pick-up truck. Esther St. Jean usually drove that truck, and Melodie was her youngest daughter ─ maybe 17 or so?

It doesn't sound like we got too carried away in that fantasy of mine.

My family was becoming involved as consumers in the burgeoning scene of official Canadian lotteries, and thus it was that I was mail-ordering for a ticket each on the Olympic and Western Lotteries.

As yet, such lottery tickets were not available at any local source.

The Econo-Mart I shopped at was in the Townline shopping plaza at 96th Avenue & Scott Road (120th Street) in Surrey. That chain of supermarkets no longer exists.

At my mother's home, I was eating some of the ice-cream that I had bought at Econo-Mart when Catherine Jeanette Gunther and her two young daughters came visiting. Jeanette was my younger brother Mark's girlfriend at the time.

I now have no idea who "Ron" was, nor whether his arrival sent Jeanette and her girls away. It likely contributed. It certainly was the factor that set me to watching T.V. in the living room by myself as I waited him out.

I was very disinclined for socializing with people I was unfamiliar with, nor close to.

Clearly those running shoes were not exactly "new" ─ they were just new to me, possibly hidden away and forgotten about.

I am quite certain that I still possess that Robert E. Howard book Swords of Shahrazar that apparently featured the character Kirby O'Donnell. FAX Collector's Editions was the publisher of my book, and I was not to actually receive it until well into 1976.

Jeanette had mentioned that my old friend William Alan Gill had tried to visit me the previous evening, but I was away visiting my father Hector and did not get back to my room until around 11:00 p.m.

Bill had also tried to visit me the evening prior to that, but I had already retired and was not interested in any company.

"Ava Gallay" would have been the main model in a 'girlie magazine' that I resorted to as a means of dispelling pent-up sexual tension. As delightful and exciting as it was to see the beautiful young women abounding everywhere with the good sunny weather, it could also be very frustrating for a socially isolated young man such as I was.